Perhaps the good senator had been eating cheese late the previous evening, and had dreamed of sinister flocks of angry birds wheeling and shrieking Hitchcock-style over his leaba even as he slept.

Ned O'Sullivan was in a terrible state altogether over those feathered fiends, The Seagulls.

The penultimate Order of Business of the political year was tipping along nicely in the Seanad yesterday morning, as senators settled in their comfy chairs and worked on their lists of holiday packing (bucket, spade, togs, Guerin Report into garda misconduct).

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